Dreaming the Impossible
by Sagemodeman
Summary: He thought it was just a dream, that he'd wake up sooner or later... OC, Konoha 3rd Shinobi War Era M for possible violence and situations
1. Chapter 1

Dreaming the Impossible

Recently I've been enjoying EmptySurface's "Hear The Silence" fiction set during the 3rd Great Shinobi War. That work has inspired me to try something similar, this is that 'try' at it with a sharp kunai.

Naruto and the Narutoverse are the property of Kishimoto, may the Shinigami forgive him for his sacrilege. 

* * *

He had always thought...

 **Dreams aren't real...**

* * *

How do you know dreams aren't real? Because you wake from them. But what if you do not wake up from one?

 **He** wondered what was going on... why **wasn't** he **waking up**... he'd always woken up and shortly forgotten his other dreams, so why was this one so different?

Even more distressing was all his senses were real. He could see, feel warmth, hear sounds, but none of it made any sense, as though he was underwater. Everything was out of focus and the sounds were foreign to him. He went through periods of hyper alertness and then he would fall asleep quickly. At times he dreamed he was being fed, but he would soon be drowsy and fall into forgetfulness.

The dream went on like this for what seemed a long time. Waking to the eerie world that slowly became more in focus each time it happened. How many times he couldn't say. A hundred? Hundreds perhaps? The experience so consumed his senses his mind had no time to make coherent sense of anything. Until...

He wasn't sure when the dream snapped into focus exactly. It was during one of the waking times. He finally understood the sounds were voices speaking some language unfamiliar to him. And his vision was clearing, so that things close became in focus. The first, the face of a woman, one he did not know, but somehow he felt a kinship to her. Her voice was soft and soothing, often putting him at ease and even lulling him into his sleeping periods. After that first time, his mind began formulating some sense out of the dream.

He was dreaming he was a baby. Odd. His dreams had sometimes been of being young, running around with friends or family in disjointed jaunts of imagination. Or he was ageless, neither young nor old, just being whatever he was. But this dream he was a baby, helpless... what would the psychologists think of that? Or Freud or Jung? Perhaps a hidden complex of rejecting his life? Though he didn't know why he'd reject his life. Sure he had regrets like anyone, things not done, or paths taken. But life was that wasn't it? Was there some deep seated regret he hadn't dealt with about his life? He doubted it.

Over many of these dream cycles he continued to wonder when he would wake up. He tried to force himself awake to no use... he'd just startle himself and start crying in the dream and the woman... his dream mother he assumed... would come to him and sooth him with a melodic lullaby he became familiar with. But nothing seemed to wake him from the dream so he decided to just ride it out. He'd done that in dreams before to. Taking them to that point between sleep and wakefulness where you could control them somewhat.

If he was a baby, then he'd focus his energy on growing up out of that babiness he guessed into his adult self-image. He tried during several of the awake cycles. He moved his body around as much as he could, grabbed with his chubby arms, kicked his feet. Several cycles in he managed to roll himself over and start backing up. Several more and he could do a baby pushup. How many cycles had it been? This dream was more work that real life...

No... scratch that... this dream was very much like real life, except this time he was aware of what he was doing every step of the way. But thankfully the periods of dream sleep seemed to be filled with more dreams along the lines he expected. Except that those dreams were of his old life, not this dream life. Odd... He dreamed of his real mother and father, and sisters and brothers. Of life as an adult working his job. His obsession with so many different hobbies and likes and such. His penchant for Anime and fanfiction. Oh boy, wouldn't this be hilarious he thought in one dream. To live out a story from one of those? That dream caused him to awaken in his dream baby body with a cry. Why? Why was he crying if this was merely a dream? A dream he couldn't wake from...

At some point he finally succumbed to the reality... this waking time was no dream... it was reality. Whatever he though was real was the dream. But how could a lowly child like him have such ideas and thoughts. No child carried experience into life... life was the granter of experience. The hardwork of living day to day... of achieving something new... learning about not only one's environment, but one's self. A lifetime built moment by moment, counted in seconds, minutes, hours, days and finally years. Because no one really counts weeks and months... unless you are a youngster where years and unfathomable.

It was around this same time he finally figured out that woman was calling his name...

 **Hoshi...**


	2. Practice - c2

Dream the Impossible Chapter 2 - May 17 2018

* * *

HOSHI!

Yeah Ma?

Don't you 'Yeah' me! Get out here and practice your drawing! Right now!

Aww... do I have to?

You know full well why you have to practice! You have to build muscle memory so you can do this without having to think about it!

OK... OK... geesh!

What was that?!

Nothin...

* * *

Hoshi Uzumaki looked down at the book and blank paper in front of him. He sighed and picked up a middle-weight brush with a narrowing tip. He'd only recently moved to this brush after countless hours and sheets of paper over the last several months.

What was a kid of five years old doing practicing this much anyway he grumbled away in his mind. His memory wandered to years gone by, to his name... he remembered the first time he'd heard it. Hoshi... Star ... his mother had called him because he was born at the same time a great meteor had streaked across the sky. Why did all Uzumaki have to be so focused on everything around them? He shivered at the thought of what his mom would have called him if a fog had rolled in or if a bad smell had come to her nose! Hoshi shook his head and looked back down at the blank paper. He dipped the brush into the inkwell and began the tedious practice.

He wondered when he'd be able to do it like his mother could... she could use chakra to create the symbols without even moving her hand. He'd watched her create seals for storing food since he was a little kid. Sometimes she'd draw the symbols out, but she was soo good! The complex sigils and signs and lines and circles, so many. And he'd only learned 100 so far, and his mother knew hundreds and said old Lady Mito knew thousands... his mind hurt thinking about it... so he concentrated on the paper and drew the symbol once... twice... three times... four...

* * *

"Hoshi!"

The red haired boy turned to see who it was...

"Aita!" Hoshi tackled the larger boy around the waist. "Where ya been? I missed you!"

"Brat! You know I was away on a mission." Aita patted the younger boy on the head. "Hey, you want to watch me train?"

"Sure! Can I practice too? I have my shuriken!" Hoshi patted a small bag tied to his waist. Aita grinned and tilted his head to follow.

The older boy, maybe 12 or 13, Hoshi wasn't sure, led the way to a training area not too far from Hoshi's home inside the Senju compound. It was the basic training area 100 ft by 50 feet with targets along one end of the field. Hoshi grabbed some shuriken and held them ready.

"Hold on there Hoshi... I got something to show you!" Aita said. Hoshi looked up at the grin on the older boy's face and waited impatiently for whatever it was he was going to be shown.

Aita raised his hand and a shuriken appeared as if by magic in his palm. The boy threw it in an arc and the metal spikes spun wildly on the path until it struck true on the center of one of the targets. But Aita didn't stop there. He continued the action... the shuriken appearing as if from nowhere and he launched them at the targets. After 10 shuriken Aita turned to Hoshi grinning. "Whatya think?! Cool huh?"

Hoshi looked at Aita's hand then down to the bag strapped on the boy's hip. The bag or more correctly holster... Hoshi realized... looked depleted. But he never saw his cousin move to get any.

"How'd you do dat!" Hoshi excitedly asked. Forgetting all about the shuriken he had in his hand, waving them around frantically causing Aita to jump back. "Hey watch it Hoshi! you have a handful of shuriken you know!" Hoshi stopped and looked at his fist closed around the shuriken... "Sorry Aita". The young boy looked a little scared as if he'd done something wrong. "No problem brat.. just watch it OK?" "OK... but how did you do that?"

"Here, let me show you..." Aita rolled his palm over and between the second and third fingers of his hand was a small seal tattoo'd there. "See this?" Aita pointed to the tattoo and Hoshi nodded. Suddenly another shuriken appeared in Aita's hand and he grabbed with his other hand and showed it to Hoshi. "See this?" On the Shuriken was an inscribed seal. Aita showed the two seals side by side. They looked very similar but with minor differences. Hoshi nodded. "I summon them with chakra, I have a chakra point right here where this seal is. I've learned how to directly focus on that one point and when I activate it a shurken is summoned into my palm."

"Cool! How'd you learn that? Can I learn it!" Hoshi asked forcefully.

Aita quickly backpedalled... "Whoa there Hoshi... this is really advanced stuff you know... Lady Mito allowed me to chose one special seal to work on."

"But can't I learn it?" Hoshi nearly teared up.

"In time Hoshi... you've got to get the basics down in throwing before you can even think about stuff like this! Now lets see how your aim is!" Aita redirected Hoshi toward the targets and they walked forward to a point where Hoshi was comfortable throwing the shuriken. Hoshi took one in his hand and threw it... it missed just left of a target. He looked up to Aita who just nodded for him to keep going. So Hoshi threw all the shuriken he had in his hand, which had been five. Two hit the target and the others had all gone left. Hoshi looked dejected for his terrible throwing but Aita patted him on the head. "Don't worry Hoshi, that's what practice is for."

The two boys spent an hour throwing and retrieving shuriken. Aita having an easy time of it as he could summon his thrown shuriken back into his palm. By the end of the practice Hoshi was hitting the targets in various places with all his thrown shuriken though he still had much to work on with his accuracy and speed according to Aita.

When they finished Aita and Hoshi walked back to Hoshi's house. "Thanks for the practice Aita" Hoshi thanked his cousin. "You're getting better brat... you might get as good as me someday!" Aita chuckled at the smirk that graced Hoshi's face... "I'll be better than you Aita!" Hoshi turned, removed his sandals, and went into the house as Aita waved goodbye.

"Hoshi!" It was his mom speaking from the back porch of the house.

"Mom... I was with Aita practicing my shuriken throwing!"

"No excuses young man! Now get over here I have something for you!" The voice of his mother demanded.

Hoshi stepped onto the polished wooden floor of the porch. His mother was sitting at a low table strewn with stacks of his papers Hoshi realized. They were his practice papers. "Sit down Hoshi" His mother patted a pillow next to her which Hoshi promptly knelt on. "These are all your practice papers." Hoshi nodded in understanding. "Do you see any differences here?" His mother pointed to the top of each stack. Hoshi studied them for a moment. They were arranged in order from his earliest work to his last practice yesterday afternoon. He nodded and was about to speak but his mother interrupted before he could. "Good... from now on you will be using these for all your practice." His mother handed him a bundled tied with a basic string.

The bundle was heavy and he could feel what must have been the edge of a book in the palms of his hands. He undid the knot and opened the bundle. On top was a set of new fine point brushes and another inkwell sized for them. They were housed in a small wooden box with scrollwork of the Uzumaki clan symbols all about. Hoshi's eyes grew wide. He recognized the box as belonging to his father... 


End file.
